


gaze at me fondly (for the last time)

by orphan_account



Series: love, war, and the end [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Lysithea, Chapter 14 of Crimson Flower route, Character Death, Crimson Flower Route, F/F, F/M, Implied Unrequited Love, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Tags may be updated if story is continued, Unrequited Love, between Edelgard and Lysithea specifically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21980518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Lysithea comes back home, but on the other side of the battlefield.Claude is waiting for her with open arms and an arrow readied.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Lysithea von Ordelia, Lysithea von Ordelia/Claude von Riegan (One-sided)
Series: love, war, and the end [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622566
Comments: 5
Kudos: 35





	gaze at me fondly (for the last time)

“I expected more from you.”

“What did you expect?” A soldier falls beside her. She stumbles for a bit, but regains her balance amongst the rubble. The ocean waves of the port are gentle and somewhat calming, contrasting the sounds of bodies being mangled and armor being bloodied.

“I don’t know, I guess I didn’t expect you to do this. Not after we grew up together.” 

His words sting. Lysithea stands, ignoring the bloodshed happening around her. She focuses on the man in front of her, panting pathetically against a wheezing wyvern. Lysithea knows its name, she knows how much it meant to him.  _ She’s one of the only ties I have to home,  _ he’d say with oh so much pride as he tended to it in the stables. Lysithea exhales. With just a few strikes of magic, the beast was dead; she had forgotten how it felt to take something down and reduce it to nothing. 

If only it hadn’t been his wyvern.

“I’m sorry, Claude. But it’s war.”

Claude laughs. Lysithea notes that she’s always loved his laugh, even if it annoyed her to no end. She’d heard it when he teased her, told her how cutely childish she was and laughed even harder when she bit back. Something in her chest flutters in this vast battlefield and she steps over a corpse to get closer to her former leader. 

“I know.” He gives her a smile as she approaches. It’s intoxicating, and Lysithea can’t take her eyes off of him. Despite how ridiculous he was and how much she wanted to whack him over the head with a book in their adolescence, he deserves her respect. “If you kill me, I think I can cope with that.” Claude looks kind of pretty, looking up at her like this. She was so used to his eyes being downcast on her that she was surprised at how gorgeous he was when she was the one looking down. “Can I say something?”

“I’m not stopping you. At least, not yet.” Lysithea warns. She doesn’t want to do this, but she has to. Her peers are slaughtering her former housemates, and she can’t do anything about it, nor would she. It was painful to see Edelgard strike down Hilda without a slight of mercy, but she has to do the same. Claude takes time to breathe, swallowing thickly as Lysithea sighs. If she does this, maybe Edelgard’s gaze will change. Maybe, just maybe, Lysithea will mean more than another comrade on the battlefield; not just to Edelgard, but to Claude, too.

“I’m so proud of you. You’ve done so well…” Claude coughs up blood and continues, “I’m happy you’re the last thing I see before it’s all over.” Lysithea frowns. He’s still treating her like a little sister, and that somehow makes her angry; she’s about to kill him, for the love of the Goddess! For once, she’s in control, and she could simply kill him right here and now. His life, his Alliance, his secret homage, it all depended on her. And yet...

“I could let you go.”

“We both know that’s not happening.”

That’s true. 

A call from behind-  _ Lysithea!  _ \- lets her know they’re alone on the battlefield. It’s now or never. Every other soldier clad in yellow is dead and gone, except for Claude and herself. It’s time now to make that one less.

“I’ll miss you.” Lysithea’s not lying. Once upon a time, she loved him. Schoolgirl crushes can only go so far, though. Claude has always known about it, no matter how hard he tried to deny it. She remembers when she told him that she would be transferring to the Black Eagles, just for some extra magic tutoring, but they both knew it was just so she could get away from him. He would never look at her the same way she looked up at him- at least, not until now.

Maybe, this is just what she wanted.

“Keep on burning bright, okay?” His voice is sweet. She gives him a smile, a real one, and he beams back at her.

What did she want? A long time ago, she dreamt of a future between them. Perhaps… maybe, if she...

_ “Say, Ly,” Claude hums out, drumming his fingers against a desk in the library. Lysithea huffs with irritation and shoots him a look, closing her book before he could come and close it for her. _

_ “What is it?” Her tone is sharp, but her words are harmless.  _

_ “What do you think is out there?” The library is silent, housing no one but the two restless deer. It’s late in the night, and Lysithea can already imagine the professor snapping at Claude to wake up during class tomorrow. _

_ “‘Out there’?” _

_ “You know. Beyond Fodlan entirely…” Claude sits on the desk Lysithea’s sitting behind. “Beyond Almyra, beyond anywhere you know. Maybe there’s something else, lying just past these borders. What do you think that might be?” _

_ Usually, Lysithea would tell him to stop bothering her with his fantasies and let her work. Tonight, she feels like playing his game. She hasn’t told him she’s transferring yet, so maybe that’s why she decides to indulge him, a silent decision she doesn’t even bother to acknowledge. _

_ “If I had to guess,” Lysithea pauses for thought, “maybe a utopia. Where nothing is wrong, and everything is just.” _

_ “That would be nice.” Claude gently pulls her book towards him. “If you could go there, would you?” He’s staring at her intently, but Lysithea isn’t scared of him. _

_ “Maybe after I can secure a steady future for my parents.” Lysithea blinks. “But… once I’m done with that, I think I wouldn’t mind.” _

_ Lysithea’s waiting for him to say that he’ll take her there. She wants him to say he’ll help her with her crests, help her find a cure for her impending death, but he says nothing. He only smiles. _

_ “I see.” _

_ Lysithea sees too. _

And she kills him. Her incantation is routine and she forgets the words on her tongue as she says them, and dark spikes manifest from the air and crash into his limp form. His eyes bulge and his mouth widens, but it’s over before he can even feel it, and he falls to the ground next to his wyvern. Claude’s blood stains her shoes, but the only thing she’s preoccupied with at the moment is how hard they’ll be to clean once they go back to the monastery.

“Are you okay?” Edelgard’s touch on her shoulder makes her stiffen. Lysithea swallows. She hadn’t noticed she had just been standing there for quite some time, staring at Claude’s dead body with a glazed over expression. How long had she been standing there? It was impossible not to notice Edelgard with her bright red clunky armor, and yet Lysithea was too lost to notice her.

“I’m fine.” The lie feels horrible in her mouth, but she’s used to it. Edelgard doesn’t press further and her hand squeezes so gently that Lysithea feels like crying. Everyone else is waiting for them to retreat, but Lysithea can’t find it within her to move.

“You did well.”

Somehow, the praise falls on deaf ears, and Lysithea only wishes her voice was Claude’s.

**Author's Note:**

> What started off as a warm up hurts my heart. I'm considering writing about two other chapters for this around the same length (or maybe one), but I'm unsure at the moment. Have a lovely holiday season.


End file.
